Abstract

The present paper ponders – mainly through Theophrastus’ De sensibus – the encephalocentric and cardiocentric standpoints adopted by four “pre-Socraticµ philosophers, namely Alcmaeon of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia, on the one hand, and Empedocles of Agrigentum and Philolaus of Croton on the other. Their insights paved the way for a fruitful – though unsolved – debate about the physiological preeminence of one part-organ-function with respect to all others, centuries before Alexandrian physicians succeeded in drawing a distinction between arteries, veins and nerves (by “peeling the body offµ